Untempered
by Keraniwolf
Summary: The Creature of Midnight wasn't always so alone, nor the Master always so mad. Once, both had been graced with company and sanity. This is a rather intense "what if" kind of story, a glimpse into the past on Gallifrey which tells the origins of the Creature that The Doctor met on the planet called Midnight and its connection to the Master. This is the story of a loyal friendship.


**Untempered**

It was waiting. Waiting and running, hurried and incorporeal. A ghost, an echo, a shadow, an ethereal breath of a skeleton of what it had once been. Remnants of power, bits of things pieced together through ages upon ages. Dying. It had been so long dying, dying. Tired. Dying. Hurried and running. Running and waiting in the cold and in the dark. Cold. Dying. It could not be warm. Too much sun, too much death, too much silent and hurried waiting. Running. Scared. Angry. Curious. Lonely. Longing. Furious. There was nothing to run towards now, as it remembered. Running, ever the running. Waiting. So much waiting. There never had been anything to run away from. Yet it was running, searching, helter-skelter this way and that. Why? It had loved it, worshipped it… been it. Why always the running? Why always the waiting? Why always the need to go forward? There was no forward to go. Sound refracted as light, unheard, unnoticed, under the radar of others; silent screaming in the dark and in the cold. It was waiting.

The little girl opened her eyes in response to a sudden jerking motion of her wrists and ankles, staring up at a ceiling that was almost too high to see. She felt the soft, icy tears on her cheeks. Cold and dark… but it had only been a dream, a simple nightmare. It had barely even been that, little more than a collection of distinctly negative impressions. Ill omens. Bad signs and feelings she couldn't even recall the true content of. Warnings without substance. Vague, nerve-wracking, and completely understandable visions of fear. Everyone reacted differently when their time came: Some were genuinely enthusiastic, some grew very serious and solemn about it, some hardly understood what was going on at all, and some… some, like her, fell victim to anxiety attacks. It was fine. It was normal. It was a rite of passage; those kind of things were supposed to give you some butterflies, otherwise you weren't facing it and she'd heard that was about the worst thing you could do.

She took a deep breath, wondering briefly that her last birthday hadn't felt like this. She'd known it was coming then, known her time was imminent. She had known that she would wake up to face this day when another year had passed. She had been fully aware that there was a rite she'd have to pass… but not really. She had only been seven at the time, anyway; younger and more naïve and with less capacity to know things. She would have all the capacity in the Universe after this. It was her passage into a true existence, an existence as a real and legitimate Time Lady. It was her beginning, the origins of a tale the Time Lord people would never forget. The start of a journey which would launch her into either fame or infamy- somehow. She could feel it, the instinct that something big was going to happen to her in a few hours. She could tell. A vision of multi-faceted colors shot past the back of her eyes for a moment, dazzling her. She frowned, feeling her hands tense briefly into fists as one foot jerked out from under her blankets in surprise. What was that?

Before she had time to think any further about it, two knocks rapped very abruptly and deliberately on her door. She could almost hear the faint hesitation after those two knocks, as if the one whose familiar voice and breath she could hear on the other side of her doorway wanted to knock again but wasn't quite sure whether he should. The young girl smiled at the recognition of her friend which motivated her to wipe the cold moisture from her face and climb eagerly (if a bit unsteadily, as her legs were still weak with lingering fear spawned by the unreliable premonitions of her dreams) from her bed.

"Get up! It _is_ your big day, even if you don't want to believe it! Or did you forget?" the voice called from the other side of the door, spurring the waking Time Lady to more quickly search through her dresser drawers for the ceremonial robes she was meant to wear. They all did. She'd watched both of her best friends—her only friends, if she was truly honest with herself- go through this nerve-wracking process, and both had been wearing such clothes when they did. Clothes which she felt were stuffy, arrogant, unnecessary. They were beautiful, of course, ornate and well-crafted. It was simply not necessary to have them. It should be known that you are prepared to face that which cannot be faced without clothing to signify it. They simply… did not fit her nature.  
Though she mused to herself that hers was a rather unusual nature in some ways. It was simply… beyond definition, she supposed.

"If anyone would forget what day it is, my warden, my jail-master, it would be you," the girl teased, loudly unlocking the door to prevent being punched in the face. If her friend knocked a third time and she was opening the passage to him, it could have ended badly. She stepped out of the door, taking a generous breath of air in. This was the final time she would leave that room. The next time she passed that threshold, she would be someone new. She would be bolder. She would be stronger. She would be a Time Lady, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"How could I possibly forget?" the boy's words were carried on the air with a pained tone as he moved to the side, letting his far more fancily dressed friend close the door behind her and fall into step with him, "This is only the most important day of your life. I know it was the most important day of mine. And his, of course. We will never… I mean…" he let the words fall soundlessly and demurely to the ground, too anxious of his meaning to continue. The girl stopped herself a moment before she replied, allowing her eyes to roam the walls and archways and the ceiling which offered a view of the great glass above which separated them from the seemingly burning orange sky. It would never truly burn, that sky. It would simply spread itself across the world, holding it, serving as beacon to and of it, protecting its ideals because it was so very unobtainable. It would always be there, that orange sky. Unlike others she knew of.

"Where is he?" she asked simply, the pitch of her voice dropping slightly as it was weighed down by doubts and disappointments. Her friend looped his hands behind his back, careful not to make eye contact with her. His own movements appeared burdened, his eyes and breathe and legs moving heavily and with the highly distinct purpose of purposelessness.

"He..." the words caught in his throat again, and the young girl made a point not to look directly as she caught him tapping his fingers shakily against the surface of his back. 1-2-3-4. Rapid, nervous, unintentional. She had believed he was recovering, but perhaps not. Not yet.

"The Doctor," she pulled herself back to the topic at hand, using one of the names the three had given themselves when they had played games of pirates and soldiers and captives in those unforgettable grassy fields on those estates which seemed always to be trying to reach the sky simply by matching their endlessness; going on forever and ever until the friends had gotten themselves lost—more than once—in attempting to find their end. It felt odd to use such a title today, but she knew there was no other way to impress upon her ally the importance of her question, "Where is he? If this day is so important that they released you to see me off, why isn't he here? Where is he, our Doctor?" She stressed the "our", lending her tone a pleading aspect. She had only two friends in this world with which to share her experiences, only two on whom to rely… if she was to pass on from innocent child to eventually legendary Time Lady, she wanted to have both of them by her side. She flinched slightly, the labored and slightly catching sigh of her old friend boding ill for her.

"He didn't say…" the boy admitted, "He was busy with those plans he's always writing about. Long into the night, he was writing and writing and writing and he—there was something in his smile, every time he looked at me it was as if— he was almost like- I—he didn't say where he was going. He didn't say when he would be back. He… didn't say he would be back at all. He only said that I should give his love to you, and wish you luck in his stead. He remembered, you see. He simply…"

"Didn't show up…" the girl finished in his place, both whispering now in thought and in dejection, "Thank you, anyway. For delivering his message, I mean." She smiled weakly at him. Suddenly, her ambitions seemed to rise in importance, in vitality to her, and the stress which she had thus far been keeping at bay bled quietly and somewhat painfully into her hands. They shook with fear as the two children neared the door. Butterflies. It was nothing but butterflies. So many had undergone this same thing. So many had faced this thing and survived. Prior to her, there had been legends born from this. She would be one of them. She had to be. For them. For her Doctor, and for her Master. She would be a legend in their names, and one day they would join her and they would sweep the Universe in a storm of ice and fire and rage and light and shadow and benevolence and all would know their names. The Doctor, the Master, and…

"Tempest, I…" the boy tapped on his back again, 1-2-3-4 as ever he did, and tried his best to smile sadly back at his younger friend in response to the calm she too was so laboriously affecting. Nearly regal in her bearing, in her quick and fluid movements, Tempest held up a hand to stop him before he had the opportunity to speak any further. The pair stopped still, standing idle some feet away from the door—just out of earshot of the guards waiting there to receive her and usher her on to her passage.

"I told you not to call me that, remember? If you are the Master and he is the Doctor, then I am the Scholar. I am your pupil, both of you men of learning. I study and thusly learn from you, my older and wiser mentors. Don't I?" a small hint of genuine mirth blossomed in her smile as she addressed the more accomplished Time Lord. His own smile obtained some joy as well, the emotion manifesting on his face somewhere between sincere happiness and the lop-sided evidence of encroaching madness. It tilted in a way that spoke of control and abandon at once, the smile he wore when he looked lovingly at his friend in the way that very scared and lonely children will.

His friend—these two who had stayed when all others had retreated from his words and his deeds and his little idiosyncrasies which seemed now so odd to in a world of Time Lords and orange burning skies. Others had balked at his training, had claimed there never again would be any sort of threat to breathe down the door of Gallifrey and warrant the need of soldiers such as he was assigned to become. He had been so long confined in this training, isolated from all others… it was good, he reflected, to see one of those so much beloved and familiar and accepting faces again. Others had fled, but not her. Not his Tempest. Not his Doctor, until last night.

"What damage does a Scholar do? I've told you time and again, my Tempest, you form craters in the ground beneath your feet when you walk. You are a giant among Time Lords, a legend in the making even now. I can see it in you: You leave your mark, as a storm will do, and leave the Doctor and myself to clean up after you. If anyone learns how to make an impact in this—or any other world, it is us from you. You teach us how to cause change, true change. You could not be the Scholar if you tried, you hurricane of knowledge and fire and... what kind of a name is that, anyway, the "Scholar"? You _are_ the Tempest, at least to me, and you always will be. The Tempest who saw the Untempered Schism and was inspired to greatness," the madness in him spread as he spoke, the tapping more consistent and the smile more tilted still, yet in his eyes the girl could see all that he was as he spoke.

Innocence and love and fear and anger, this boy was. Always he would be her Master, teaching her to rise above any obstacles she found. To keep moving, even when all the world told her to stop. They had told him to stop, those peers of theirs, but neither he nor the High Council had listened. They had continued. They had moved forward, ever forward, and so would she do if ever anything should attempt to stand between her and her fame—her legend—her life alongside these friends of hers. She glanced down at those trembling and paling hands of hers, white as the fear which shot colors of dazzling light behind her eyes every so often.

"That does have a pleasant ring to it, doesn't it? The Tempest of the Untempered Schism. I could be that. They could tell stories of that. The Doctor could, when he travels wherever he's traveling to, spreading my name like light spreads so beautifully across the silver leaves of the trees…" quickly, she looked up and into those eyes with the fear still settled adamantly far behind them and spoke with urgency, "You will tell him, won't you? You'll tell him everything that happened, won't you? You'll tell him how brave I was, won't you? How I made it through? How I'm going to be a legend?"

Sadness took its place at the front of the Master's eyes, his observation of the Doctor's recent behavior telling him there was little chance the last child of the trio would truly return to them, "Of course. We both wish you love and luck, Tempest. And in case—I mean… in case you should… you know… change… as I did… I don't want you to—I mean—If you do, I…" again, the young Time Lady stopped him in his broken and crackling stammering of pained and regretful words.

"There is nothing wrong with you," her own words were forceful, as if she was trying to hit him with the intention of pushing the doubt and fear from his mind.

"I know. I know. I know that—when I'm with you. You—you and him—you especially… you make me… better. Better than I am. It's there, always there. I can hide it. I do hide it. I make it disappear, when it has to. When I'm with you, I don't need to try. It goes away all on its own. I mean, it never goes away. Not really. It's always there. In my head. 1-2-3-4, drumming. Ever drumming. I don't know what happened. I don't know what changed. I looked into—I mean… what if…?" his voice failed him, words shattering in the air around him as he so desperately clawed at and reached out for the power of speech.

"There is _nothing_ wrong with you. Maybe if I say that enough times, you'll one day come to believe me. Maybe that's why I make you better, as you claim. You're my Master, and the Doctor's Master and we will always be there for you when you need us. We will make you better, I swear. There is nothing wrong with you," she shifted her weight onto the tips of her toes, kissing the boy lightly on the cheek as a sister will a little brother when he has come crying in from the cold and dark of the night, "I can assure you, my friend, nothing will happen to me. Nothing happened to the Doctor, did it? And even if something does happen, and somehow I change into something less than myself rather than more, I know you will be there for me. You are my friends. You are my everything. Nothing will happen. I will be fine." She smiled reassuringly at him as her weight fell back onto the whole of her feet, hiding her hands behind her back as to conceal the worsened quaking of her body. It refused to comply, her legs wobbling now and the color drained from her face. Perhaps he was too mad to notice. Perhaps he was too mad not to notice. The Master sighed again, breathing deeply several times with the desperation of a man drowning and hoping air will preserve what life he has left in him.

"Thank you… I promise I'll tell him that. I swear to you now, my Tempest, I will tell him of your victory," the tilt in the smile on his face leveled out, the sadness and fear in this Time Lord's eyes being overwhelmed now by that innocence Tempest had known for so long and so very well. The Master and the Tempest at last matched in their expressions, both looking at each other with such gratitude as only true and loyal friendship can inspire. Without need of any sort of cue, they took to walking again and at last reached those ornate and looming doors behind which the thing all Time Lord children knew they would one day face was contained. One guard took hold of the girl's shoulder, the butt of his staff hitting the ground forcefully to call for the door to be opened.

"Ready?" the Master's question sat atop a tone of impending mischief, as though there were some plan forming in his mind, and with careful and deliberate attention he slowly began to walk backwards from the doorway with his hands still clasped behind his back and one finger still drumming that ever-constant beat upon his back; never once taking his eyes from the guards who were watching him in equal carefulness.

"Yes. I… I really think that I am. Thank you," the Tempest's assurance sat instead upon an anxiously quivering lightness which lent both eagerness and fear to her shaking and worried form. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, watching with curiosity the strange behavior of her friend.

"Good. Oh, and by the way. I wasn't released from training to see you today," his smile once again took on that aspect of madness, mirth and insanity colliding and melting into a mischief distinctly separated from yet so heart-warmingly reminiscent of that which the young boy had once displayed back in those fields when he would play the pirate capturing the princess and the Doctor would come to her rescue—only to have the three fall to arguing the rules with one another by the end of the day. The second sun would set before their conflict was "resolved"… though really, between the three of them, it never really was that.

The second guard's eyes widened, recognition at last making its way onto his so stoic and focused expression as the Master explained his words, "I escaped it!" With that, the young Time Lord dodged out of the way of the advancing guard and those two children of Gallifrey laughed with the pleasure of children who have committed a crime beneath the noses of their parents, the happiness in the sound being the first truly joyful thing to pass their lips since last they had seen one another. They were going to be troublemakers for sure and certain, those three. Tempest only wondered which one of them would end up cleaning up after the others, as the Master had professed he and the Doctor always did in the wake of her. Perhaps they truly would be legends then, destroying as much as they built. Helping as much as they harmed. Abusing their power as much as they used it properly.

Perhaps that was what Time Lords were, the girl considered as her friend darted away, his deranged and innocent and excited laughter ricocheting off of the walls and the ceiling and the shining, reflective floor in his bubbly appreciation of a job well done. The voice was so clearly his, it calmed slightly the nerves of the eight year old he had been forced to leave behind.

The original guard, momentarily frozen in debate with himself regarding whether to pursue the criminal or guide this girl to that which she had been so long anticipating the view of, at last decided that his prior obligations took precedence over anything which might spring up in the meantime. With a disappointed shaking of his head which disguised the amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth, the guardian of the Schism began walking forward and so very gently encouraged the child at his side to keep step with him. Maintaining as composed and regal a posture as she could manage in spite of the shaking of her body, Tempest complied and walked through the doors which so slowly and dramatically unfolded open before them. Perhaps that was what all Time Lords were, she considered: Tempests, leaving marks wherever they went.

With measured steps and nervous breath, the young Time Lady at last reached that which she had been dreaming and wondering of for a year now, since the day that the Doctor had returned from it . She could feel the icy touch of anxiety in her lungs, though something in her hearts began to melt away with the angry swirling blue glow emanating from the center of the room, underscored by layers of orange and red that seemed to flash in her eyes before passing away as though they had never existed. Her pace quickened slightly, her breath coming faster and more wondrously. What was this? What was this sensation, as of terror and longing and want and repugnance and love? Was that what this was?

Fury. Fury and calm. Love and apathy. Fire. Fire and ice. The guard released her, standing aside the Schism as so many times before, watching her reaction. He was alone this time, unlike the usual protocol of things, but he could handle one child—even if she might look up at him in that so highly unsettling and hearts-stopping way the boy his comrade had chased once looked into his eyes. He could face that again… he hoped.

Her eyes were glued to it, her throat constricted and tears forming in her eyes. It was beautiful. Terrible, horrible, settling fear in the marrow of her bones unlike she had ever known. Yet it was warm. It was wonderful. It was the fire of life. It was the fire of knowledge. It was kind of fire which fueled a type of storm in and of itself. It was gorgeous and it was everything. It was—it wasn't—her hearts beat out of synch with each other, more rapid than that drumbeat she had come to know, more staggered, more fearful, more painful, those hearts moved as if they were failing and grasping and screaming silently for some kind of release from this vice of sight in which she had so cruelly trapped them- it was, though—it was everything. EVERYTHING.

Breathing quickly, panting as a creature cornered beneath the gaze of a predator, the girl glanced up to the eyes of the Time Lord standing so tall above her. He was small, though. He was insignificant. He was a Time Lord like her, perhaps, but not like her. He was not enough. He was nothing. He was as nothing compared to her. Compared to it. Compared to the strong pull and feel of everything. The man's muscles tensed, his eyes wide and unblinking and his feet pressed to the ground in such a way that he knew they could not be moved from that spot again if he had dared to try. His hearts constricted in fear, as this girl's so multi-layered and terrible eyes had some strong and terrible grip upon them. This was not madness, and yet it was. This was the kind of clear madness which sees everything. She had glanced into the Untempered Schism of Time itself and when she looked at him, it was as if he too was staring the entity down once again—albeit a warped and maddened version thereof. There were colors there in her gaze which he had never seen before, hues which he hoped he would never have the chance to witness a second time. There was power in those eyes, he could not have denied it had he dared to try. There was knowledge. There was fear. There was a thirst, a hunger for something he could not name simply by peering into the depths of those eyes which made him shudder inside even when he was completely immobilized without.

Her mouth opened softly and with starts and stops as if to speak, yet there was no voice within her anymore. The Schism had taken it. Enfolded the sound within itself, caressed it, stolen it, and left her with no choice but to retrieve it from the depths of herself. And she knew what herself was now. She knew what a Time Lord was. She knew what a Tempest was, that it could cause such destruction and enact such change of landscape and life alike.

Frantically, she threw her gaze around the room and spun backwards in circles of frenzied searching. Searching, searching. Where was it? Where was she, the place she had to go to in order to retrieve her voice and feel forever the warmth of that fire which was herself? Where was it? Where was everything now? The fury, the light, the glow of knowledge and time and power and all that she so craved to have and to be? Where had it gone? She screamed silently within her blood, angry and caught up in some whirlwind of emotions which took firm hold of all inside her and attempted to drag her down into the ground—down, down, far and far until she reached the burning and immortal orange sky itself. Immortal as Time, immortal as Death, immortal as the fire at the heart of the Schism. She screamed and screamed and held her head in her hands, the glow of the ever-moving blue and its lashes of red and orange angrily and enticingly and so very warmly calling to her out of the corner of her eye.

One last time, her throat hurting—all of her, all of her hurting so much, she couldn't handle it—she looked with tear-stained paleness of face and multi-colored redness of eyes at that guard so still and so pale himself and so terrified of her and plead for this not to happen—for this to happen. It had to happen. Nothing else worked. Nothing else made sense. It had to happen. Fire. Fire, fire, fire. She needed fire. She was on fire. She was burning, she was collapsing, she was shattering as the mind and the words and the innocence of that never-again-not-innocent friend of hers had. For him. For them. For them, she would be the Tempest of the Untempered Schism. She would be a legend. She would rip it apart to get back the voice it had taken from her. She would rip it to shreds, to pieces and pieces.

Running. She ran forward, no care for anything else now. Just the voice. The voice it had taken. She needed it back. She had been unable to take it, so it had taken her instead. She would take it back. She had to take it back. With force enough to conquer the freezing and howling fear within the marrow of the blood of her bones, the Time Lady hurled herself from the ground and into the heart of Time itself—into the Untempered Schism, where she watched with tear-clouded eyes and rapid, terrified breath as her fingers began to unravel into blue and red and orange and anger and calm and love and apathy and fear and courage and warmth and the storm of Time Lord nature and she herself was torn apart. Torn to shreds, to pieces and pieces, and she knew she should be scared and she was scared—so, so very scared, deep down in the hearts now dispersing into light and ribbons the color of Time as they succumbed to the power of the force of that thing which had so carelessly and painfully torn the voice from out her once innocent and unscarred throat where the blood of the scars of the breaking down of her mind now ran fresh as her tears—yet she was instead overwhelmed now by peace and comfort and satisfaction. She had made it. She had made it into the nice, warm fire. She had become the fire. She had become what she knew now she was always meant to be, the Tempest at the heart of Time. The Tempest of the Untempered Schism, as she had promised.

Then the warmth began to fade. No. No, no, no. It couldn't leave her. It couldn't ever leave her. It was never going to leave her. She had seen that, felt that, she _had given up the whole of her life for that_. Desperate. Afraid. Pained. Ancient. New. Warm. No. No, not warm. Cold. So cold. Freezing, as the ice in her veins had done moments ago. No, not moments. Ages. Ages upon ages. No, was it not moments? What was it now? What had it been? What was she? Where was she? Where was it? Cold. The cold was everywhere. Freezing. She could not be warm. She—there was no she. She had existed in the thrall of Time, in the storm that was the Untempered Schism, in a state of twirling ribbons of light and matter and emotion. It was not possible for her to exist anymore. There was only the cold. The cold and the dark and silence. What was it? Where was it? What would it be? There was no legend now. It was no legend. Not anymore. Not now. Would he keep his promise? Would he tell him, then, of its victory? Of its change? Of its leap into everything which left it as nothing?

The cold. The dark. The fear. The fury. The waiting. The running, ever the running. Forward, forward, in spite of all obstacles. Ever forward. Forward… where? Gone. Gone, gone, all she had ever been. Now only the breath of a skeleton of what she had once been. A creature new. She was no Time Lady. This was no Time Lady. This was something else. Something different. Something cold, and dark… and silent. Ever silent, for her voice had been stolen… and in her attempts to recall the voice with which she had once spoken, in her battle waged against Time as to rip it to pieces, she had been torn apart in its stead and left to die. Again and again in the glare and the cold and the blinding of this terrible ever-present midnight sun—dying and dying, always dying. Tired. Defeated. Waiting. Running. Running forward, perhaps to retrieve its voice. Its long ago, long forgotten and lost—lost, so, so very lost—voice. Maybe it would wait for that. For a new voice. For something reclaimed from that terrible grip of the Schism. If she would be torn apart in pursuit of it, then let her tear apart whatever stood in her way of it. Of a voice. Of a sound. Of warmth. Of light. The cold and the dark oppressed her, pressed in upon her, where once her hearts had been now there was cold and the vague impression of dazzling lights which stole away her vision in the night and sent twinges of pain through this incorporeal and ethereal form which she dared not even call hers. Yes, that was what it would run towards. That was what it would wait for. A voice. A voice to call hers.

Yet it forgot. Often, in the ever-stretching of the dark and the cold which spread out as to rival that likely still-soaring ever-stretching Gallifreyan sky only vague whispers told of in its dreams, it forgot and wondered. Running. Waiting. Why? Why always the running? Why always the waiting? One day it would know. One day it would claim a voice of its own, would return to the world of light and warmth. Would leave the dark and the cold. Oh, the dark. Oh, the cold. It had loved it, worshipped it, been it—the tempest of fire. It knew not when or how or why, but it had been that… and it would tear apart worlds to be that again. It screamed out, fighting against the cold and the dark with a scream—yet unheard, unnoticed, nothing but ribbons of light bouncing through the formations in this barren and forsaken world as laughter had once echoed in a hall long lost to the memory of Time.

The guard peered into the emptiness of the Schism when the initiate was gone, the sound of silent sobbing infiltrating his mind and speaking only briefly there of a quick and awful predatory consumption of hearts and mind and skin and bones and flesh and voice. He shuddered, holding his head in his hands. Never. Never again would he guard the Schism. Some other Time Lord could take this post, could see the things he had seen and perhaps—if he was very lucky—live to tell the tale. Twice now he had been accosted by eyes he could not bear to see, and twice he had lost himself this way. Perhaps he wouldn't tell the tale at all. Perhaps that way, he would stay sane as these children so obviously had not.

A face met him as, shaky in his lungs and suffering a migraine, he left the room; the much younger Time Lord before him smiling eagerly and anxiously and scanning for someone who was not there. "Where is she? My Tempest, where is she?" the small child asked, excited and proud and bouncing on the balls of his feet with his hands clasped ever behind his back. One finger seemed to tap on the back of his shirt, quick and constant as it had been when the guard had first met the boy. 1-2-3-4. Ever 1-2-3-4, wasn't it?

"Gone. Gone. Just gone. Gone. Forever. Completely. Gone. Just gone. Eaten. Taken. I—I should not be telling you this. She… she is gone. Be content with that information, and tell no-one I was the one who informed you of its happening," the words flooded the tensely charged air before he had the chance to prevent their being spoken. Abruptly and with faltering direction, the guard swept past the boy whose face had fallen and whose eyes had widened with disbelieving fear.

The beat pounded on the inside of his skull, casing the entire thing in force and pressure and sound. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. Persistent. Angry. Louder and louder. Close and closer. The drums. The ever-beating drums of his childhood, of his life, of the madness so many claimed he had. The proof of the breaking of his mind. The thing that was wrong with him. She had said nothing was wrong with him, but she was gone now. She couldn't say that ever again. She had only ever said it to humor him, anyway. She had said there was nothing wrong, but now everything was wrong. She was gone. Just… gone. What had happened? Would he ever know? Did he want to know? 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4.

"Shut up! Just shut up!" he cried out, leaning forward on the edge of his bed and holding his ears so tight in his hands that his nails formed dents in the back of his head as he clawed in to increase his purchase there. He rocked back and forth a moment, breathing steadily to calm himself. He could hide it. He had always been able to hide it. Would he be able to hide it his whole life, now that he had no-one there to remind him that there was. Nothing. Wrong. With. Him? He breathed deep, craning his neck up at the ceiling. She was gone. Gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone! It made him angry. It made him sad. It broke his hearts, as his words had always broken when he spoke of his madness to her and his gratitude for her treatment of him had overwhelmed his mind.

"Are you… okay, or is this a bad time?" a familiar voice, a welcome voice, a voice that made him bitter and angry just to hear, filtered down from the small window in his room. He didn't remember getting to his room. He had been talking with the guard and then… then he had been here, on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.

"What are you doing here? You were gone. Days and days, you were gone. You said—you didn't say, but—she trusted you. She thought you would be there. You let her down!" the Master shouted, standing from his bed as a soldier will when called to attention by his superior officer.

"What do you mean? I figured it out, you see! The plans, they were all wrong! You don't need plans, you just need to…!" the other boy's voice fell in volume as he watched the tears and rage in those innocent eyes until he was whispering with trepidation and concern alike, "What happened?"

"She— nothing. You don't even remember what day it was when you left, do you? You don't even remember her. It doesn't matter, then. I…" the tears flowed freely now, his body shaking with grief. He had promised her that he would tell the Doctor about what happened, but he didn't even know what had happened. It had ended, that was all, and what victory was that? He couldn't tell of her victory if none had come to pass. The High Council wouldn't even elect to say her name anymore, all of Gallifrey giving her up to silence out of what they _called_ "respect"… but of course it was fear. It had to be fear, if even he couldn't speak of it anymore. There was nothing to say. There was no legend to tell. The gales of wind had died, the violent sheets of rain had given way to empty and angry dark clouds, the storm had faded and stopped leaving its mark on the universe around it… the Tempest was finished, so what was there to tell? What was there to hold onto anymore? "She needed you. I needed you. Where were you?"

The Doctor was silent for a long moment, crouching bow-legged at the window in order to be at an angle where he could search the eyes of his friend and taking a sharp breath of thought in before he spoke, "I can't say. It would ruin everything if I said. I'm sorry. Does that help? If I say that? I mean it, you know. Really, I do. I'm sorry… I'm really, truly, so very sorry. I _had_ to… I couldn't…! You know what happened to me…"

"What _did_ happen to you, old friend?" the Master demanded, a slight venom tucked away beneath the desperation of him.

"… I ran…" the other Time Lord whispered so softly that he could barely even hear himself say the words, "I have to… I mean… I'll be back, okay? I'll be back for you. Both of you."

"There is no both of us," the Master muttered once his friend had risen to his feet and run off just as the Doctor always did, "I don't know if you'll ever know that, but there is no both of us anymore. Just you. Abandoned her. Separate from me. Just you, old friend."

And for a moment, as he let his gaze fall onto the orange of that sky he loved the way he had loved her, that sky that was home almost as much as she was, the Master could feel something in the marrow of his bones. For a fraction of a moment, he felt something cold and dark and silent. Refreshingly silent. He closed his eyes, one hand against the wall in relief and gratitude. Perhaps this was her final gift to him. Perhaps this was her doing, this blissful silence. 1-2-3-4, no. No. No, no, no, no! 1-2-3-4. It wouldn't last. Of course it couldn't last. He was the Master. He was a victim of the Untempered Schism, as she had been. He was a Time Lord.

Perhaps that was what Time Lords were, he thought as he gritted his teeth together and violently drummed against the wall in time with that infuriating drumming. His Tempest was gone, "eaten" in the words of the man who had seen her in her final moment. His Doctor was gone, too, running again like he always did. Who didn't? Perhaps that was what all Time Lords were: madness, driven to run from itself. The Tempest had ended, and nothing else made sense. Running. That's all they were ever doing, those mad people from the mad world with the maddening piece of Time locked away in its halls. Running from their own madness.


End file.
